A 1.2-mW/Channel Pitch-Matched Transceiver ASIC Employing a Boxcar-Integration-Based RX Micro-Beamformer for High-Resolution 3-D Ultrasound Imaging

This article presents a low-power and small-area transceiver application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for 3-D trans-fontanelle ultrasonography. A novel micro-beamforming receiver architecture that employs current-mode summation and boxcar integration is used to realize delay-and-sum on an N -element sub-array using N× fewer capacitive...

Spin-in of RISC-V Processors in Space Embedded Systems

The usage of terrestrial processors in space applications is not straightforward, as processors in space face unique challenges due to the effects of the space environment, like ionizing radiation causing Single Event Effects (SEEs). In the nineties, the European Space Agency chose the Scalable Processor ARChitecture (SPARC) Instruction Set...

A Tiled Ultrasound Matrix Transducer for Volumetric Imaging of the Carotid Artery

High frame rate three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound imaging would offer excellent possibilities for the accurate assessment of carotid artery diseases. This calls for a matrix transducer with a large aperture and a vast number of elements. Such a matrix transducer should be interfaced with an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for...

A Pitch-Matched Low-Noise Analog Front-End With Accurate Continuous Time-Gain Compensation for High-Density Ultrasound Transducer Arrays

This article presents a compact analog front-end (AFE) circuit for ultrasound receivers with linear-in-dB continuous gain control for time-gain compensation (TGC). The AFE consists of two variable-gain stages, both of which employ a novel complementary current-steering network (CCSN) as the interpolator to realize continuously variable gain....

A Pitch-Matched Transceiver ASIC With Shared Hybrid Beamforming ADC for High-Frame-Rate 3-D Intracardiac Echocardiography

In this article, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for 3-D, high-frame-rate ultrasound imaging probes is presented. The design is the first to combine element-level, high-voltage (HV) transmitters and analog front-ends, subarray beamforming, and in-probe digitization in a scalable fashion for catheter-based probes. The...

Neural-Network Decoders for Quantum Error Correction Using Surface Codes: A Space Exploration of the Hardware Cost-Performance Tradeoffs

Quantum error correction (QEC) is required in quantum computers to mitigate the effect of errors on physical qubits. When adopting a QEC scheme based on surface codes, error decoding is the most computationally expensive task in the classical electronic back-end. Decoders employing neural networks (NN) are well-suited for this task but their...

Microelectronic design of a pseudo voltage clamp for a 0.18um CMOS-based mesoscale neural interface for intracellular in-vitro recording and stimulation

The need to understand how the brain works has sparked interest in electrode arrays to record neural signals. Intracellular recordings with nanoelectrodes that penetrate the cell allow better signal quality and additional functions such as voltage clamping to set the neuron's transmembrane voltage. The voltage clamp aims to facilitate the...

A Transceiver ASIC for a Single-Cable 64-Element Intra-Vascular Ultrasound Probe

This article presents an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed for intra-vascular ultrasound imaging that interfaces 64 piezoelectric transducer elements to an imaging system using a single micro-coaxial cable. Thus, it allows a single-element transducer to be replaced by a transducer array to enable 3-D imaging. The 1.5-mm...

Design of an ultrasound transceiver asic with a switching-artifact reduction technique for 3D carotid artery imaging

This paper presents an ultrasound transceiver application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) directly integrated with an array of 12 × 80 piezoelectric transducer elements to enable next-generation ultrasound probes for 3D carotid artery imaging. The ASIC, implemented in a 0.18 µm high-voltage Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (HV BCD) process, adopted a...

A Variable-Gain Low-Noise Transimpedance Amplifier for Miniature Ultrasound Probes

This article presents a low-noise transimpedance amplifier (TIA) designed for miniature ultrasound probes. It provides continuously variable gain to compensate for the time-dependent attenuation of the received echo signal. This time-gain compensation (TGC) compresses the echo-signal dynamic range (DR) while avoiding imaging artifacts...

A Reconfigurable Ultrasound Transceiver ASIC With 24 x 40 Elements for 3-D Carotid Artery Imaging

This paper presents an ultrasound transceiver application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed for 3-D ultrasonic imaging of the carotid artery. This application calls for an array of thousands of ultrasonic transducer elements, far exceeding the number of channels of conventional imaging systems. The 3.6 x 6.8 mm² ASIC...

A Front-End ASIC with Receive Sub-array Beamforming Integrated with a 32 × 32 PZT Matrix Transducer for 3-D Transesophageal Echocardiography

This paper presents a power-and area-efficient front-end application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is directly integrated with an array of 32 × 32 piezoelectric transducer elements to enable next-generation miniature ultrasound probes for real-time 3-D transesophageal echocardiography. The 6.1 × 6.1 mm² ASIC, implemented...

Flexible active electrode arrays with ASICs that fit inside the rat’s spinal canal

Epidural spinal cord electrical stimulation (ESCS) has been used as a means to facilitate locomotor recovery in spinal cord injured humans. Electrode arrays, instead of conventional pairs of electrodes, are necessary to investigate the effect of ESCS at different sites. These usually require a large number of implanted wires, which could lead to...

Flexible active electrode arrays with ASICs that fit inside the rat's spinal canal

Epidural spinal cord electrical stimulation (ESCS) has been used as a means to facilitate locomotor recovery in spinal cord injured humans. Electrode arrays, instead of conventional pairs of electrodes, are necessary to investigate the effect of ESCS at different sites. These usually require a large number of implantedwires,which could lead to...